The Bush administration, which calls the USA Patriot Act perhaps its most essential tool in fighting terrorists, has begun using the law with increasing frequency in many criminal investigations that have little or no connection to terrorism.

The government is using its expanded authority under the far-reaching law to investigate suspected drug traffickers, white-collar criminals, blackmailers, child pornographers, money launderers, spies and even corrupt foreign leaders, federal officials said.

Sure, the Patriot Act was pased to fight terror and wassn’t just a prosecutorial power grab. Assholes.

This looks like a press release from People for the American Way, the ACLU, and Sen (loose lips) Leahy disguised as reporting.With the new law breaking down the wall between intelligence and criminal investigations, the Justice Department in February was able to bring terrorism-related charges against a Florida professor, for example, and it has used its expanded surveillance powers to move against several suspected terrorist cells. So far, so good. Sami Al-Arian is hindered in his recruiting for Hamas. Tragedy.
As for the cases cited I really don’t feel a great deal of sympathy for a four time killer, and the rest of the people sound pretty guilty to me too. If this is a war on my neighbors I think the neighborhood is much safer. Find me some harmed innocents

The PATRIOT Act was mostly a long wish-list of changes to the law that dated back into the Clinton administration. The provisions of the PATRIOT Act that gave the justice dept powers over investigations other than terrorism were no secret and are not “loopholes”.

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